For anyone who knows that stories grow best when tended, not pushed There’s a quiet rhythm to Iowa work. You can hear it if you stand long enough near a windbreak or let your shoes fill with dust on a late-afternoon gravel road. Things that matter here usually grow from patience, not spectacle. That same rhythm shapes how I run Small Adventures Communications, my Des Moines, Iowa, digital PR agency, where the digital part sits in service to something older, slower, and stubbornly human....

There is a moment, just before a story gets really good, when the body leans forward before the mind catches up. The pupils widen. The breath steadies. Something ancient in us wakes like a prairie vole twitching in tall grass. Scientists have measured what our grandmothers already knew: humans are built for story, not as decoration but as biological fuel. Researchers at Princeton found that when we hear a well-told narrative, the listener’s brain begins mirroring the storyteller’s patterns,...

You know it, and I know it: storytelling is 100% more captivating than fact-telling. Wouldn't you rather hear someone weave a dramatic tale than hear them list off a bunch of facts? Stories are what move us to action, they connect with us on a much deeper level than our logical brains and incite us to do something differently. The best ones reflect our own experiences through a new lens and broaden our worldview. When your job is helping people care for their health, storytelling can get...